an endless voyage ch 40
XSS Destroyer.......
" Torturin that husky girl paid off, mah love." Xenia told Jerry. "We managed t' git most a' the weapons online, but the particle beam's still nonfunctional, an' the engines're only operatin at ten percent."
"Take twenty of our best ships, and go, my queen. find those fools, and secure your prize. We need this ship fully operational."
"There mahgt be a easier way, mah love." Xenia said. " s' a ship in this asteroid field, in the other reality Ah'm from. s' crippled, an' hidin t' make repairs. We kin use the transporter t' get there. problem is, whos ship it is."
"Why's that, my queen." Jerry asked.
" 'S the other Maya...Emperess Maya 's she calls herself...trust me when Ah say she makes Admiral Maya look gentle. But her Karen 's a genius too."
"Take two hundred of our finest warriors, and go." Jerry said. "If that damn merc and her band of flunkies are headed for X, I need this ship fully operational before they get there. We will defend our home, and crush them, and with Maya's fleet out of the picture all those worlds holding onto false hope will finally roll over for us."
"Ah'll need twice that many, at least." Xenia said. "Emperess Maya's flagship is like a fortress... even battered as it was when I left....an' Galaxy Commander Karen has more bodyguards'n you do hun."
"Done." Jerry said. "And come home safe."
They share a very passionate kiss, as Jerry fondles Xenia's huge shapely rump, and then Xenia sets out to accomplish her goal.
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Excalibur, fighter bay.
Sarah strapped herself into the cockpit of the Raven, and contacted the bridge. "Bridge, Gunner, ready as I'll ever be, ma'am."
"Copy Gunner." Maya said. "Green light fer engine start."
"Wilco, Admiral." Gunner replied. Taking a brief moment to familiarize herself with the digital controls, she hit the ''fuel pumps' switch, then flipped the engine switch to the ''start'' position, and the computer took over. rather than having to manually engage the jet-starters for each engine as she did in the Phoenix Mk V, she only had to flip the one switch, and the computer did the rest, cycling between jet-starters as each engine spun up to successful ignition flashover.
"Ignition successful, all engines idling normally." Sarah reported.
"Taxi t' position, an' lock in fer engine run-up." Maya ordered.
"Copy that." Gunner replied. Releasing the landing brakes she applied just enough throttle to get the Raven moving, and using the flightstick to control the nose-gear as a means of steering she taxied into position to allign with the fighter bay doors. Then she re-locked the landing brakes. A section of the flight deck tilted up into place behind her engines which served to scatter the high temperature turbine exhaust as well as something for the engines to thrust against for added boost. "Secure, Admiral." she informed. "shame I cant drive to X, this thing handles like a dream on the ground."
"Run-up." Maya said. Then to the combat patrol; "Lead, Excalibur, The Raven'll join ya shortly, Watch fer any probelms, an' try t' git 'er on sensors."
"Copy Admiral." the patrol lead replied.
"Yes ma'am." Gunner replied. She put the throttles up to full afterburner as she said it.
The four JP3850's spooled up smoothly as the engine computers opened the throttles, and the afterburners ignited without a hitch.
"Bridge, Engines at full power and holding." Gunner informed.
"Pressurize an' stand bah." Maya replied."
"Wilco, Admiral." Gunner replied. She closed and pressurized the cockpit, snapped her mask into place, and checked her instruments and HUD once more. Then she informed the bridge. "O2 pressure holding steady, all systems read nominal, ma'am."
"Green light, Raven, green light." Maya informed.
"Copy that." Gunner replied. She released the landing brakes, and like a rubber band snapping the Raven shot forward, and she was nailed to her seat momentarily as the inertial dampers struggled to compensate for the extreme G's she was pulling.
"V1." Gunner called out, pitching the nose up slightly. Normally it went without saying as it was second nature, but as this was as much a test flight as a mission, Sarah felt it prudent to call the numbers.
"Still green." Maya replied.
"V2." Gunner called out. and then a moment later. "Excalibur, Gunner, I'm wheels up and clear of the bay."
"Understood Gunner." Maya said. "Make a pass around the fleet t' git a feel fer 'er, then set course an' engage hyperdrive."
"Copy that." Gunner replied, fighting to stabilize the ship. Now that she was flying free, the touchiness of the flight controls being fully digitized was causing her to overcompensate, and spiral out of control.
"Gunner, Bullseye, level out, quit showing off and form up for a pass around the fleet." Tom informed
"Who's showing off, Bullseye." Gunner replied, finally leveling out. "Fuck this thing is touchy!"
"Follow me, Gunner." Tom said. "Gator, Shark, Longsword, Yinyang, Hotshot, anything on sensors?"
One by one, Hank (Gator), Yuri Ivanov (Shark), Danny Valentine (Hotshot), Yaolin Mei Tsao (YinYang), and Kelly Cambridge (Longsword) gave their reports.
"Nothing but you and the rest of the squadron, Bullseye." Hank replied.
"No sign of Raven, Bullseye." Ivanov added.
"Sensors are clean, Bullseye." Yaolin informed.
"I'm drawing a big blank here, Bullseye." Danny added.
"Negative, Bullseye. I show nothing but our patrol and the fleet." Kelly replied.
"Excalibur, Bullseye, squadron reports negative contact, Admiral."
"Thats good news, Bullseye." Maya replied. "Proceed t' phase two."
"Copy that, Admiral." Tom replied. "Gunner, Bullseye, proceed with weapons check."
"Wilco Bullseye." Gunner replied. Then she armed her autocannons, and fired a short burst into open space. "Check good, Bullseye." she reported.
"Good to hear." Tom replied. "Bring your hyperdrive online and check power while we circle the fleet."
"Copy that." Sarah replied. Then she pressed a button, sending power to the hyperdrive, and the hyperdrive computer began booting up. Sarah gave periodic readouts of the hyperdrive status display as they circled the fleet, and once more reported condition green.
Tom informed Maya the ship was good to go.
"Gunner, Excalibur, proceed on mission. Set course an' engage hyperdrive."
"Wilco Excalibur." Sarah replied. She input the coordinates into the hyperdrive computer, and manually alligned her course to match while still at sub-light. "All set, Admiral. Engaging hyperdrive."
And in a flash, she was gone.
"Good luck, Gunner. An' Good huntin." Maya broadcast wellwishes only the patrol and the fleet actually heard. She was on short range comms, not subspace, so there was no chance the signal could catch the Raven traveling in hyperspace.
For Sarah, the swirling neon of hyperspace outside her cockpit canopy was a little disorienting at first, but soon enough she grew accustomed to the sight.
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Alternate reality, Emperess Maya's flying fortress flagship Excalibur.........
Xenia and her boarding party had beamed in to one of the cargo bays, and immediately neutralized the guards before they could raise the alarm. Xenia was pleased to see the ship was still badly damaged, from the look of the emergency lighting. She must have done more damage than she had thought. The downside of that was, she needed the engines going to supply enough power for her return.
Using a guard's keycard, Xenia unlocked the door, and her boarding party began to work their way aft, toward the backup transporter room. Given the size of the ship, they didnt have time nor the numbers to fight deck by deck all the way to the command level. They'd have to use a site to site transport and beam in somewhere big, like the mess hall. That would put them close enough to reach their target within the alloted time.
It was a bloodbath from the moment they beamed into the mess hall. Trays went flying and tables were overturned as the Emperess' crewmen and security forces engaged Xenia and her Xian soldiers in battle.
The room erupted in a hail of gunfire. Sidearms, 20mm assault rifles and CQB shotguns against the Xians' 4.7mm assault rifles, Xian magnums, and Xenia's BFG personal autocannon. One of the security personnel had a BFG personal autocannon as well.
The floor was covered in blood, as both sides took heavy casualties. Grenades exploded, sending tables, food, and bodies flying, and over the roar of automatic weapons fire and explosions, the Intruder Alert blared.
Xenia knew she had to move fast, as the Emperess would not hesitate to vent the room to space, sacrificing her own men to stop the intruders. She conveyed her orders through hand signals alone, as the Xians had yet to learn to read canine body language, and shouting above the nosie was impossible. More slowly than she would have liked, her boarding party pushed forward, overwhelming the Emperess' forces with sheer numbers...but it had cost them. The mess hall crewmen and security present lay dead, but so did a third of Xenia's soldiers. Xenia herself was covered in blood and exploded food, and had a few pieces of shrapnel stuck in her body armor, but was otherwise ok.
"Fuck." Xenia spat as they pressed on through the corridor toward the Galaxy Commander's quarters. The reason was obvious. The bitch with the BFG, Callie, wasn't among the dead... She had retreated, likely to set up an ambush further ahead. Xenia had come too far to let that stop her of course.
A very unwelcome voice boomed through the internal comms.
"Get off mah ship y' cheap copy. Soon's mah repairs're complete, Ah'll flatten X, lahk Ah toppled s' many others, an' nothin kin stand in mah way." Emperess Maya demanded.
Xenia was furious. She ordered her troops to double time it, as they charged ahead, tearing through crewmen and security alike with renewed fury. In her rage, Xenia hadn't noticed Callie hidden behind a utility cart. She lost nearly a hundred more troops geting there but she made it to the Galaxy Commander's quarters, and knelt to place door charges around the locking mechanism.
*Whump* *Whump*
Xenia glanced back to see a third soldier hit the ground with a *whump* as her ears picked up the telltale sound of a silenced weapon. "Find her you fools!" Xenia barked.
She stepped back, and just in time too for she felt a bullet whiz past her head, grazing her thick fur. Xenia detonated the door charges, and forced her way inside.
"Look what the dickheads dragged in." Galaxy Commander Karen remarked swiveling about in her solid platinum, diamond and gemstone encrusted chair. "I thought I flushed you out an airlock the last time you tried to sneak aboard."
"Mah ship beamed me up jus in tahme." Xenia returned. "Now, come quietly ''galaxy Commander'' she chuckled at the last bit "An' ykin finally git out from under yer cruel emperess' tail."
"Better her tail than yours." Karen replied. "Being the Emperess' wife has its rewards." she gestured to her lavish furnishings.
"She has ya buildin' torture machines." Xenia said. "Come with me an' y'kin work on engines, shields, weapons, we kin defeat yer cruel emperess, an' her even crueler counterpart in their reality. she jestured to the Xians."
"As cruel as Emperess Maya is, you are a million times worse." Karen replied. "As for the other one...I met her once....If only my Maya was like her......"
"Suit yerself." Xenia fires a tranquilizer dart and the Galaxy Commander slumps over her desk.
"Get her up, an' let's git outta here." Xenia ordered.
Xenia and her remaining forces made a mad dash for the main transporter room, and battled security as the Xian technicians with them set the coordinates and configured the transporter to send them home.
One minute they were fighting for their lives, the next they were aboard XSS Destroyer their prize safe in hand. They still hadn't managed to take out Callie, but she and her elite security had cost them greatly. Xenia returned home with only half the troops she'd set out with, but she had Karen ao hopefully the ship would soon be at full power.
Alt. Karen, henceforth referred to as Karen-X to avoid mixups awoke to find herself stripped naked, wearing a shock collar in XSS Destroyer's Main Engineering.
"Bout tahme y' come around." Xenia said. "The engines're gobblin fuel an makin nowhere near the power they're s'posed ta." Xenia said. "Ah thank 's somethin t' do with the Deuterium injectors, but Ah caint make heads 'er tails a' it, an' well...The Xians built it, but Its yer design...Ah liberated the blueprints las' tahme Ah's aboard the Emperess' flagship."
"Yeah this is better." Karen-X replied sarcastically. "I go from silk clothes and lavish furnishings to nudity in some Xian grease-pit of an engine room."
"Fix the ship." Jerry said. "And then we'll talk about your accomodations."
"If I knew this ship would only be used to defeat Emperess Maya I would fix it in a heartbeat." Karen-X said. "But I cant take a chance you'd use it against the fleet. Admiral Maya is no tyrant. I told you I met her. She is not mad with power like the Emperess."
"Y'll be singin a dif'rent tune once yer properly "motivated"." Xenia returned, holding up a strap-on. "Bend her over the table there." she told an Xian soldier.
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The alarm clock beeping roused Sarah from her slumber. The beagle shook herself awake, taking a long drink of water, and ate a powerbar as she watched the clock run down. In about a minute the computer would drop her back into normal space, and she would once more pilot the Raven manually.
What she saw when she came out of hyperspace was very disheartening. The Xians had dozens of orbital defense platforms armed with 80" autocannons and missile batteries, as the Raven's sophisticated sensors had already determined.
Sarah throttled up gently. Just enough thrust to cruise but not so much as to attract attention on infared scans, and began her first sensor sweep.
There were at least a dozen ships in orbit. a mix of cruisers and Heavy Dreadnought battleships, two orbital shipyards, and a dense network of sattelites forming a detection grid.
Sarah held her breath as The Raven sailed through the grid unmolested, breathing a heav sigh of relief.
Scans of the planet's surface started coming in now. X was hot...Excruciatingly hot. The vast majority of the planet was desert, with only two small bands of ocean near the poles. Its binary suns meant there were only about four hours darknes each day.
The advanced alien-looking cities, and fortified military installations left little doubt this was indeed the planet X.
Not wanting to risk dipping into the atmosphere for fear the fireball of atmospheric entry would give her away, Sarah altered course, taking the Raven right through the middle of one of the shipyards and then the other.
She flew the length of the defense grid surrounding the planet, taking detailed scans of each defense platform, as well as what appeared to be three control nodes.
Next she flew up alongside one of the Xian battleships taking scans, and in doing so intercepted a crypto exchange as the ship excanged IFF with the defense platform control nodes as it departed.
It wasn't a huge gain. Obviously the fleet couldn't all masquerade as Xians with only one IFF key, but if all the ships sent out that key simultaneously it just might confuse the system momentarily. At least that was Sarah's thoughts. It would be up to the Admiral how best to use the intercepted IFF exchange.
Sarah made several passes over the planet from high orbit, mapping out the entire surface with sensors and optical cameras, made a close pass of each of the ships, and then scanned each of the planets three moons.
The largest of the three had a breathable atmosphere, and appeared to be a mining facility as well as a listening post for the defense grid.
Sarah angled off further into the xian star system, pointing the nose of her fighter toward both neighboring planets, but neither proved capable of supporting life so she didn't risk a hyperspace ''hop'' to check them out further. Instead she headed back into deep space, watching the planet shrink away on her aft camera view until she was confident she was well out of sensor range. Only then did she engage the hyperdrive, and once more hand over control to the computer, as she needed to take a leak.
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